To those who remember, originally the last 3 powers announced to the game were Munnitions (Controller), Atomic (Healer) and Serums (Tank), the later based on Bane, but through complications here and there, it was changed so Atomic was tank and we got Water healer, among these complications I heard talk about difficult to animate and how a power that is all about injecting DRUGS wouldn't really catch well. So, here's a fun idea: Make a Serums HEALER, where you inject, spary, spew and drink all sorts of concoctions and mixtures, like the fantasy archetype of the Alchemist, I even came up with an interesting mechanic: Volatile aura - A status put by the caster, you emanate a cloud of noxious fumes that damage foes or heal nearby allies, using certain skills with this Aura on will result in additional effects, in a similar vein to the High Tide from Water, but a little less restrictive. For instance, if you have Volatile Aura and use a Priority heal, the aura is passed on to the healed ally and the HoT becomes stronger. If you use a Group Heal, the aura pass on to all allies healed, but the HoT won't be as potent. If you use a shield, the shield itself gains extra effects. On Enemies? Anything is possible! They detonate, combust, freeze, stun... Other skills I though about are things like spewing all over the ground corrosive ooze to damage enemies that step on it, creating a large cloud of gas to heal allies inside of it, and of course, plenty of HoTs and DoTs. Not only this could make the power make a little better sense, but also turns away from the direction of a Drug Addict pumping his body up into something a little more moraly correct like a pharmacist or chemist using medicine to heal and poison.
And I do think Serums is fit since using energy would be too close to Electric and Atomic, so using chemicals is the only path not taken yet. Unless DCUO would miraculously follow my idea of giving all powers all 3 roles so even Gadgets and Munnitions would be healers (Munnitions would be prtetty fun as some sort of field medic dropping supplies xD)
Thing is, the "classes" in DCUO are named after the powers, not the wielder, plus "alchemist" is too old-school and medieval for a game centered in a modern world, and even bringing magic into it, we already have two magic-centered powers anyway. And Chemistry doesn't really sound "super-powery".
I find the irony in turning down serum hypocritical because Batman in the Death Metal used a needle to inject himself to become Doomsday. Now I want to know what other excuse they could throw out.
They scrapped it because of issues getting the grappling mechanics they'd planned for it to revolve around just not working out with how the game is built, not because of that. Side note: I think "alchemist" being an old thing works perfectly fine for a superhero game and also "chemist" sounds plenty superhero-y to me. Certainly not any less so than "gadgets." Plus "chemist" would open it up to a broader range of abilities than solely serums. Like, you could be Metamorpho! Or just something like Honey Lemon or whatever her name was!
Serums was turned down by the players in favor of a Water powerset, it had nothing to do with any association with drugs.
Are you usre it's not, like... both? Devs didn't like the whole drug stuff, players liked Water better, bibidi-bobidy-BOO, new power schedule!
Doomsday Batman is a bossfight, a villain, he geta a free pass to do the unethical because he is meant for us to kick his ***. And one thing is to inject yourself with a mutagen, the other is becoming an addict on a sci-fi steroid. I do prefer this Chemist approach to serums, with not only injections but gas and liquids being applied to intoxicate foes. Maybe even with this fun idea where you summon an Aura with the pet mechanic (you have to press the skill button again to deactivate it) and instead of roaming free, it lingers on players.
I may have missed it but could you point me in the direction of where the devs said they didn't like the "drug stuff" because there's multiple drug references already in the game. There were other issues with Serums and at the same time people were showing interest in a Water powerset. I can't find the original tweet but Spytle had posted on Twitter asking DCUO players if they wanted Serums or if they wanted Water. This is the results of that Twitter poll: https://twitter.com/Spytle/status/615991717800509440 Atomic was then planned to become the Tank power, originally a Heal power. Serums was officially "pushed back" but never officially cancelled until years later.
Yeah, that and the mechanical issues with how they'd originally conceptualized it (not being able to make the grappling aspect work with the game's tech). I highly doubt they were all that bothered by the drug thing considering that the power and even it specifically being serums and having the name serums (though I would prefer the "chemist" route personally, just because it's more open for players to do more kinds of things with IMO) was, IIRC, based on/inspired largely by Bane who has been in the game for forever and his whole deal is using super-steroids. And it's even specifically mentioned that it's super-steroids with the mentor mission line where you're interfering with his Venom supplies and some of his goons occasionally even shouting "the juice is loose!" or just general addict-like dialogue. And there's so much DC media just in general that explores just how Venom really effects Bane (like when Terry sees him as an old man in Batman Beyond and he's confined to a chair with an IV and respirator and very frail and weak because of all his use of Venom). And then there's the numerous Man-Bat serum base items as well as Man-Bat himself. Plus, the game itself has a T for Teen rating. Unless there's some weird legal or ERSB related issue with having players themselves use imaginary drugs/steroids/mutagens specifically, I doubt the similarities between drugs/steroids and.... drugs/steroids (because it's pretty upfront just super-steroids) was the issue. If it was, they wouldn't have started working on the power in the first place because it just IS drug/steroid use and inspired by a particular Iconic character who's whole concept IS super-steroid use. It's not like something they'd start working on and then realize is kinda reminiscent of drugs/steroids and then decide against. It was intentionally actually that (just with fictional ones) from the very start. That's just what it is. They just scrapped it because of problems with making the original concept they had for it work and decided to do something else instead.
Funny how players responded well, anytime I suggested Water Powers in the chat in places like Watchtower and such most players were like "why? We already have Ice powers, they are the same!" and I had to twist my pancreas to not choke some of those players xD I hated hearing that "argument".... As for Atomic, it's not only a great power in concept, but it fits pretty much all 3 roles.
Devs: *Constantly being asked to add something to the game every five seconds for several years* Devs: *Finally add it when it becomes doable* Some rando: "Why are you doing this? No one wanted this. This is stupid. Waste of time and resources. You should be doing this thing I want instead even though you probably are also working on that and it just takes more time. Cancelling my sub. Horrible company." Tale as old as time...... I know these people are the minority but MAN! They can be so loud and annoying lmao. At least they can be very amusing sometimes, like that thread in General rn expecting Mepps to just magically upgrade the whole game and citing a Discord mod as having said something he never said lmao.
And this was the second time I called out a power before announcing, first being Quantum xD Although the response wasn't so annoying. "wouldn't be nice to have time/space powers in this game?" "nah, that sounds too OP" to which my argument that OP is only dependant on how the powers work, the theme can be anything. And a few months later, Quantum was announced!
